Engineering Education Quality Assurance From The Perspective Of Professional Accreditation

Engineering science and technology plays an increasingly important role in the development of science and technology and the process of global economy integration. It will be the significant power for the development of current and future human society. As a result, engineering education is a crucial basis for enhancing the international competitiveness and talents cultivation in the field of engineering science and technology. Currently the scale of engineering education in China is very big but the strength is not strong. How to improve the quality of engineering education in the new development situation is a hot issue that the government, enterprises and universities are very concerned about. Engineering education professional accreditation is not only an efficient approach to improve the international recognition and competitiveness of our engineering education, but also an important guarantee for universities to advance higher engineering education reform and improve the quality of engineering education. Establishing engineering education professional accreditation system is an urgent need for engineering education to realize its comprehensive, coherent and sustainable development, which has become a consensus between the engineering and education domain.The research selects four majors from E University, which have passed the engineering education professional accreditation as cases. By analyzing and discussing the relationship between professional accreditation and engineering education quality, we have found that the current engineering education professional accreditation institution is helpful to improve the engineering education quality assurance, thereby enhancing our engineering education quality to the utmost. This paper is divided into the following five chapters:Chapter 1 includes the research background and significance, the literature review, the core concept, the research object, the research idea and methods. Firstly, it summarizes the general situation of domestic and abroad engineering education professional accreditation, especially Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and China Engineering Education Accreditation Association (CEEAA). After analyzing the problems in our engineering education professional accreditation, it gives the definition of professional accreditation, engineering education quality and quality assurance. Finally it presents the research idea, research object and research method of this paper.In chapter 2, it first introduces the three main talents cultivation ideals, which are generally concerned in the field of domestic and abroad higher education, i.e. "student-centered", "outcome-based education" and "continuous quality improvement". Subsequently, it discusses how these ideals are displayed and applied in the standards of Sino-American engineering education professional accreditation. Eventually, it introduces the general development of Sino-American engineering education professional accreditation and compares the standards of these two countries.In Chapter 3 and 4, it investigates the importance of engineering education professional accreditation to the improvement of engineering education quality via interviews. Chapter 3 takes chemical engineering and technology of E University, which has passed ABET accreditation as case to analyze the preparation and process of professional accreditation. It aims to find how to improve the quality of talents cultivation and significance of international recognition. Chapter 4 takes chemical engineering and technology, pharmaceutical engineering, polymer materials and engineering and environmental engineering, which have passed CEEAA of E University as cases. It elaborates the accreditation backgrounds and processes of these four cases and analyzes how to improve engineering education quality and establish engineering education quality assurance through engineering education professional accreditation.In Chapter 5, it summarizes the features of engineering education accreditation of E University. On this basis, it proposes several measures for improving Chinese engineering talents cultivation quality:establish the ideal of "student-centered"; form the mechanism of continuous quality improvement; enhance the professional level of teachers and strengthen the practical teaching.